Page 752 - Kosovo Metohija Heritage

Protopresbyter-stavrophor Savo B. jović
ing. in this regards, we also need to ask the local central government and administration to protect our monuments and antiquities, to investigate and put the hermitage of St. Peter of Koriša under State protection.
2) in Djakovica, in the location where there is an old Orthodox chapel in a time worn building more resembling a shanty than a house, we need to build an impressive church with monies obtained for our destroyed new Djakovica churchandreusethebuildingmaterialsfromit.Thiswould certainly require the influence and authority of our State. This would be proof that the Orthodox Church of that area is not stripped of its rights. it would be a reminder to the inconsiderate part of the albanian population, and a mes- sage to the secret agents of albania: Keep your hands to yourself!
The local Serbs there are convinced that the Djakovica Muslims, who see our community and their own future among us with sober eyes, would view the building of our church with joy and the lifting of a burden on their souls, a rectification of the injustice done to us. We should expect that they would even materially assist this undertaking. While for our threadbare and poverty stricken new settlers, as well as for the old-timers throughout Metohija thinned and decimated during the occupation, mere news of satis- faction for our Orthodox faithful in Djakovica would be an invigorating spiritual injection. They will awake spiritually and in their productive work they will dedicate themselves even more to revitalization and reinforcement of state cre- ation in their liberated homeland. Our Bishop and clergy, and all the Orthodox will be given through these two satis- factions equal civil rights and enable them to use their au- thority and work to be even stronger builders, the spiritual cement in the reinforcement of our national and state unity, the previous religious tolerance and actions of the Serbian Orthodox Church will be justified, and motivation and ap- proval given for even more agile work in that direction.
3) ask competent higher authorities for an order to lo- cal border officials to thoroughly check those who are flee- ing from albania to our country: are they really political emigrants, who have international and our own moral rights and asylum, or are they fleeing from the savage and infertile rocky mountains for cultivated Metohija and the fertile Priz- ren plain, a pre-planned fortification of their element in our country, the mobilization of a Greater albania, and increased suffocation of the Serbs in their classic homeland? Many Serbs in Prizren and even in Peć are selling their houses and other property, and it is being bought exclusively by alba- nians, who are building their nests in purely Serb nooks, even the smallest and most remote. The consequences of this should be carefully considered, and we should keep in mind that they are highly organized and have a secret plan for secession. They are busy working while our people are confused and disunited.
i ask the Holy Synod to forgive me for disturbing it di- rectly with my unsolicited observations. it was my hope
that i would find His Grace Bishop Vladimir here, so i could also inform him and seek his blessing for my intention but he has already departed. The matter was too time sensitive to seek consensus by an exchange of letters. But i believe he will not have any objections to what i have said because if anything on which i have reported is undertaken and successfully completed, it will represent an improvement for his difficult and in many things powerless position and situation.”41
The Holy Synod of Bishops and the Patriarch also re- ceived a letter about albanian misdeeds from jovan Gligo- rijević, a retired judge from Belgrade, Kralja Milutina Street 16/III, who sent a letter to Serbian Patriarch Vikentije on june 28, 1951, saying:
“i feel compelled to present the real situation in Meto- hija to Your Holiness personally and in writing, like to our old patriarchs, on the basis of my observations, especially in Djakovica and in general, after spending some time there this year, as follows:
Numerous literature (Plač Stare Srbije [The Cry of Old Serbia] by Serafim Ristić and many others), newspapers in our own country and abroad are clear evidence to what extent the Serb people of Kosovo and Metohija has been the victim of brutal eradication: numerous lives, plundering of property, violence in various forms, torching of homes, churches and monasteries, in a word bloodthirstiness that has never been seen in the remotest reaches of world his- tory by malicious a-national elements under the rule of the Turkish government. The persecution, cries and weeping of the enslaved Serb commoners, distressed and mired in bondage, culminated on the day when that pain was felt by all the free people in Serbia and Montenegro, who arose to arms and with its armed forces and allies fought the war of 1912, which brought it victorious glory, broke the chains of slavery of five centuries, and liberated its brothers by blood and faith, avenging Kosovo and the fallen heroes, knights, nobles and great leaders of the state on the battlefield on St. Vitus’ Day (Vidovdan), june 15, 1389.
The well-known Serb generosity did not provoke lust for revenge after liberation in the sense of the adage ’an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’ but on the contrary, the ma- licious element was given the possibility of reform, cul- tural enlightenment through schools and various societies, all in the interest of a fraternal community, that they might live with us in love and harmony. Thus, all those various quarrels that arose from those numerous victims under slavery were forgotten. (...) Unfortunately, this extended hand of reconciliation was not understood by the anation- al elements as a general blessing but more like weakness, the inability of our government to run things, and conse- quently after a time they returned to their old trade with their actions in 1915: to attack, to murder and plunder the Serbian people, their old instinct for revenge was awoken.
41 AHSB, Syn No 95/1951.
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